|
|
|
|
|
1824 |
School
of Computer Science |
|
|
Weekly
Newsletter |
27 October 2014 |
|
|
Contents |
News
from Head of School
Annual
Research Symposium The Annual Research Symposium is this week, Tuesday 28th
– Thursday 30th October. The Keynote talk will be by Stephen Brewster, Professor of
Human-Computer Interaction in the Department of Computing Science at the
University of Glasgow, at 12:00 on Thursday with the prize giving and poster
session to follow. The full agenda can
be found here: http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/pgr/symposium/ All sessions are open to all staff and research
students, please feel free to attend some and see the breadth of great
research that our PhD students are doing. Team goat
success. Four of our undergraduates took part in this year’s Team Goat: (L
to R in the photo below) Jessie Abramson and Antonio Marino (both on
industrial placement at CERN), Grzegorz Jacenkow (Y2, CSBMwIE), and Mark
Larah (Y3, CS) -- who won two categories at this year’s Disrupt Europe
hackathon in London. Their first win was for “a Siri for social network management”
and their second was for a “virtual changing room”, where the system detects colours
and suggests what users should wear.
ACM team
selected Last Wednesday
afternoon, 23 brave students tackled five challenging algorithmic problems to
determine who would represent the School in the prestigious annual international
ACM programming competition. The winners were (second pic, right to left)
Karol Jurasinski (Y2, CMwIE), Ettore Torti (Y2, CSwIE) and Ion Diaconu (Y2,
CS). The School is flying them to Sweden next month, accompanied by their
mentor, Tudor Morar (PhD, Y2). See the problems and other info here.
Foundation
Day Video The University’s new Foundation Day video has a short section on early computing in Manchester. There is a shortened version on the University’s Facebook page. PhD Open Day The School was part of a new-look EPS Faculty PGR Open Day
on Wednesday 22nd October, held in the foyer of the Alan Turing
Building. Around 300 visitors came to look at PhD opportunities in schools
and CDTs around the Faculty. Thank you to the staff and students that helped with the stand, and to those students who contributed their posters to the EPS research gallery. And finally… It’s nearly MOVEMBER. Every year, staff and students in the
School grow moustaches to raise awareness and money for prostate cancer,
testicular cancer and men’s health. The picture below shows last year’s fearless Mo Team.
Please join in and help us look even sillier this year, and raise money for a
good cause.
News and announcements
Wear it Pink 31
Oct 14
The official Wear it Pink day was held on Friday
24 October but Computer Science like to be different so we’ll be holding ours
on Friday 31 October. We’ll be having
a coffee and cake morning in the common room beginning at 11am where you can donate
to the Breast Cancer Campaign for some cake and bring your own drink. Wear something pink to go with the theme –
feel free to be as outrageous as possible! The
"Dawn of Cognition" by Steve Furber is part of the daily
"Digital Minds for a New Europe" series Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European
Commission, recently solicited articles on Digital Minds for a New Europe
for her website, which publishes a series of articles by - in her words -
"the world's best digital minds", as a daily digital coffee-break
piece to promote digital Europe. The Dawn of Cognition
article by Professor Steve Furber was published on 23rd October, looks at breakthroughs in science and technology,
and at how digital advances are transforming our lives. The Digital Minds for a New Europe
series runs for 40 articles, up to 1st November. Open Access:
An Academic's Viewpoint with Professor Robert Stevens of the University of
Manchester For Open Access week the library has released a series of videos with
academic staff talking about Open Access including our Director Research Robert
Stevens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIlbrMr_in8&list=UUDEQUX6B2u2Erx5n1Bw5e9A Computer Science
in the media ‘Today’ ran an article about the History of Communication and
Technology exhibition at the Science Museum which mentions various Computer
Science related topics and an article about ARM. The full article is at 16 minutes and ARM starts at 22 minutes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04lsxh3 Children in
Need in November
The time has come to start clearing out your
cupboards and donating wonderful items for our annual Children in Need Online
Auction (a bit like Ebay). Please
bring your donations to ACSO, Kilburn room 2.127 anytime from now on – and we
will open the auction for a week on Monday 10th November. It will close at 16:00 on Friday 14
November. We will send the link round
to the auction when it opens. http://www.bbc.co.uk/childreninneed Events
LMS Computer Science day on Wednesday 29th October The annual LMS Computer Science day on Wednesday
29th October in De Morgan House, 57-58 Russell Square, London, WC1B 4HS. http://www.lms.ac.uk/events/computer-science-day The day is free for students and £5 for all
others, which is payable on the day. Limited funds are available to help with
students’ travel costs. Further details are available from Duncan Turton at
the Society (computerscience@lms.ac.uk) The theme of this year's day is
"Computational and Mathematical Modelling for Improved Understanding of
Biological Systems" and we have some great speakers: Luca Cardelli (Microsoft Research &
University of Oxford), Netta Cohen (University of Leeds), Aldo Faisal
(Imperial College London), and Jane Hillston (University of Edinburgh).
Shutterstock/StudioSmart mHealth & eHealth Innovation Review 30 Oct 14 10-12:00, Joule
Suite, Core Technology Facility, Grafton St. UMIP undertook a review of the activity and related Intellectual Property in mobile and electronic health (mhealth and ehealth) across the University earlier this summer and Jane Garnett spoke to a sample of the academics active in that field. Having interviewed 30+ academic and support staff across the University most expressed an interest in hearing about the results. This event is an opportunity for Jane to present her findings to the University mHealth community giving an overview of the University’s activity and the grant opportunities, potential markets and potential sources of funding. The academic’s listed will also give a brief presentation on their current research as an example of the work being undertaken. Speakers include: ·
Jane Garnett (JG Technology Management Ltd) “UoM
mHealth & eHealth Innovation Review - including grant opportunities,
markets and sources of funding” ·
Prof. Tariq Aslam (Institute of Human Development )“It’s
Child's Play” ·
Dr Sandra Bucci (School of Psychological Sciences)
“Using mHealth to deliver a psychological intervention for serious mental
health problems” ·
Dr Alex Casson (School of EEE) “Low power mHealth:
neurotechnology and energy harvesting” ·
Prof. Sonja Kotz (School of Psychological Sciences)
"Why using a mobile health device for day-to-day monitoring of
Parkinson’s disease?" Registration required. Launch of ESRC Impact Acceleration Account 2014-18 Programme 30 Oct 14 10:12:00, Joule Suite, Core Technology Facility, Grafton St. Following a successful pilot IAA programme, The Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC) has awarded the University of Manchester over £860k
to deliver the Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) until 2018. The first
funding call will open at a launch event on Oct 9th 2014. ESRC
Impact Acceleration Account RCUK Digital Economy’s fifth
annual Digital Economy, All Hands conference 3-5 December
2014, Imperial College London DE2014 is a unique multidisciplinary environment, bringing
together the UK’s most innovative thinkers and researchers to share ideas on
how to impact society across a range of sectors; including transport,
healthcare, financial services, and the creative industries. Speakers
include: Alice Gast, President, Imperial College London, Ed Vaizey MP,
Minister of State for Culture and the Digital Economy, David Poskett, Vice
President Enterprise UK&I, Huawei, Geoff Mulgan, Chief Executive, Nesta,
JP Rangaswami, Chief Scientist, salesforce.com, Ludwig Siegele, Technology
Editor, The Economist, Steve Adler, Chief Information Strategist, IBM, Tomasz
Smilowicz, Global Head of Mobile Solutions
Citi plus many more… The
conference will explore the concepts at the heart of the global digital
economy; from the cutting edge in digital economy research, technical
challenges, and user engagement, through to latest thinking on privacy and
data sharing to exploring how to create value from digital data. These issues
will be explored through a mixture of curated activities, submitted papers,
posters, videos and technical demonstrations. Tickets can be booked online or by emailing de2014@imperial.ac.uk. Funding Opportunities
Research
Support Office Please contact us through researchsupportcsm@manchester.ac.uk. There is information about support for grant writing, submission and
successful examples at http://staffnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/reso/
and through EPS. The EPS blog The Word contains features
News, Events and comment relevant to Postgraduate Researchers, Research Staff
and Supervisors or PIs. Important: Changes in EU Funding Opportunities More detailed information is available now
that for Horizon2020 has started (the successor of FP7 EU programme). EU
research funding is important for the School and it’s important to understand
what’s available http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/index.html EU funding-related documents are placed by
the University's EU team at: A great resource
recommended by the ICT National Contact Point is http://www.ictic.org/, which also provides handy overview
documents. Interested in
FET-ICT? Here are some webstreams from a recent ICT Proposers' Day in
Florence. Includes a webstream on Health and wellbeing https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/ict-proposers-day-2014-webstreams Cancer Research UK Multidisciplinary Project Award 17 Nov 14 Closing date:
17 November 2014 Up to £500k is available from CRUK; including
equipment, and salaries for PDRAs, PhDs, technical staff and associated
running expenses, for projects up to 4 yrs The Multidisciplinary Project Award supports
collaborations between cancer researchers and scientists from
engineering/physical science disciplines. These awards are awarded jointly
between PIs from engineering/physical science disciplines (incl. CS and at
any career stage), and PIs who are working in cancer research. With a primary
focus on multidisciplinary research, the research themes within remit for
this award include:
Multidisciplinary Project Awards are designed
to fund individual project proposals. Alternatively, for research proposals
of a similar nature that encompass a more detailed body of work,
please refer to the Programme
Awards. AHRC Digital Transformations Small Grants
Call 27 Nov
14 Closing date: 16:00, 27 November 2014. The latest call under the Digital Transformations Theme is now live on the AHRC website. Applicants may apply for projects up to the value of £50k FeC. The aim of the call is to explore the potential for digital environments to facilitate collaborative research and dialogue between practice-based research in the arts and other forms of research in the AHRC disciplinary domain. Projects will be expected to commence between 1 April and 30 October 2015. Any queries at all regarding this call, please contact Wendy Matcham. Toshiba
Fellowship Programme 2015 5
Dec 14 Closing date: 5 December 2014 The Fellowship is an excellent opportunity for PhD students to gain a rare experience of working in a leading technology company’s R&D labs in Japan for 2 years, allowing them to conduct new research within their field and learn about key R&D techniques as well as about different country and workplace cultures. Candidates must be of EU nationality and at PhD-level with no more than 10 year’s post-Doctoral experience. Research Topics for 2015 include: ·
Next generation storage system architecture for cloud data centres ·
Data analysis technologies for healthcare applications ·
Machine learning for media data understanding ·
Deep learning approaches to knowledge and language processing ·
Quantum computing devices ·
Modelling and simulation challenges ·
and more… Fellowships for the future of
manufacturing: challenges from the Manufacturing Foresight report Closing date: 16:00 9 December 2014 The Manufacturing the Future Theme is looking to establish a number of established career Fellowships that will act as a response to the Manufacturing Foresight report. Areas could include:
Directors of Research (Robert Stevens) will have
more information on this shortly. Featured
Research Outcomes
Did you know…papers featured in the newsletter also go on display in the
Kilburn Building (outside finance: 2.03)? Send your new publications to Robert
Stevens so that more
people get to know about your research. Janna Hastings, Andy Brass, Colin Caine, Caroline Jay, and Robert Stevens. Evaluating the emotion ontology through use in the self-reporting of emotional responses at an academic conference. Journal of Biomedical Semantics, 5(1):38, 2014. http://www.jbiomedsem.com/content/5/1/38 Have we missed something? If you have some award news that you would
like us to know about please contact Sarah Chatwin. |
|
|
|
|
|
